Ancient Assassins?

BARRY BALDWIN sifts through the evidence at a pair of classical crime scenes in an attempt to figure out who done what to whom in a saga of political conspiracy and family plots that makes Game of Thrones look like The Waltons...

- Barry Baldwin

At sunrise, one day in June 336 BC, watched by a huge crowd on the theatre of the old capital city of Aegæ, Philip II, King of Macedon, marched into the arena behind a ceremonial parade of statues of the 12 Olympian gods, plus an unlucky 13th, an image of himself.

His bodyguard followed at a distance: Philip wished to demonstrate that he was protected by universal goodwill and needed no weapons. Arrayed in a white ceremonial robe, he walked between two young Alexanders, his 21-year old son, the future ‘Great One’, and the King of Epirus, his new son-in-law.

These festivities were part of the ritual attending the dynastically arranged and just concluded nuptials between his daughter Cleopatra (Alexander the Great’s sister) and Alexander of Epirus, brother of Philip’s currently estranged wife Olympias, and one-time lover of Philip himself: in effect, the bride was also her bridegroom’s niece – compare the marital tangles of ex-Stone Bill Wyman – and the marriage incestuous.

As Philip paused by the arena entrance, a young member of his Bodyguard rushed forward and stabbed the King with his sword – shades of Indira Ghandi.The 46-year-old monarch lay dead in the dust.The assassin attempted to flee – there was a horse waiting at the city gate – but tripped and fell, rather like John Wilkes Booth breaking his leg after shooting Lincoln in the Ford Theatre. A gaggle of Macedonian noblemen who had begun a pursuit caught up, but instead of seizing him for arrest, they (Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby leap to mind) butchered him with their weapons.